Reviewed By-Sean
Patrick Dolan
Year: 1996
Director: Lynne Stopkewich
Cast: Molly Parker, Peter Outerbridge
"When you die, your life flashes and you disintegrate, radiating energy.
When a thing turns into its opposite, when love becomes hate, there are always
sparks. But when life turns into death, it is explosive. There are
streaks of light, magical and electrifying- I've seen bodies shining like stars.
Some say there is no soul, no afterlife, that life and death is merely the
straightest line on the compass and nothing more. I say believe what you
want. Because no matter what you do- cut it all up, burn it all down, you
are in the path of something beyond your control."
With this opening soliloquy, delivered in voice-over by Molly Parker as images
of her caressing a naked dead body flash across the screen, we enter into a film
that is all at once an incomplete psychological profile of a young woman growing
up, a tragic love story, and perhaps the only serious attempt ever made to
depict necrophilia in a context beyond that of shock and exploitation.
This film is provocative, at times even erotic, and can't fail to leave a
lasting impression on any one who sees it.
Sandra Larson (Molly Parker) has been fascinated by death, "the feel of it,
the smell, the stillness", since she was a young girl. With her
childhood friend, Carol, she finds dead animals in the woods and holds elaborate
funeral rites for them- shrouding their bodies, chanting prayers, and ultimately
interring them in the ground in mock graves Carol tires of these games before
Sandra does, and so she must return at night to give the creatures a
"proper burial". From an early age Sandra has tied death to
sensuality- in scenes where the actress is portrayed by a girl not more than 12
or 13 years old, who strips to her undergarments before digging up the animal's
bodies, rubbing them across her skin, and dancing over their graves.
Sandra's friendship with Carol ends after the other girl is disturbed by
witnessing her in these activities, which Sandra has tried to share with her.
Sandra is several years older and in a high school biology lab, witnessing a
dissection of a frog. This sparks an interest in her, and she goes through
a phase in which she dissects mice and other small creatures on her own to
"get inside them, see the order, and understand the perfection" of
nature. It is not long before she quits her job at Larson's Flowery to
work at Wallis' Funeral Home. She wants to learn the "art" of
embalming. Mr. Wallis is more than happy to take her as an apprentice and
teach her, but she is disgusted and disillusioned when she is shown the
procedures, which resemble a form of butchery and disturb her aesthetic
views of the purity and beauty of death. She feels sorry for the corpse
they worked on, and seems to believe that it could still feel. She strokes
its face and chest murmuring "It's okay, don't worry".
Sandra is allowed to drive the hearse from the mortuary to the church where
funerals are held. She stops at a car wash, and while safely hidden
inside, crawls into the back with the coffin containing a handsome young man who
has recently died. She makes love to his corpse, the first instance of
what she calls "crossing over". In her words, "It was
glorious and overwhelming, and absolutely addictive." To Sandra, it
is not merely a carnal, but indeed a spiritual experience. "It was
like diving into a lake; sudden cold and silence. Their bodies floated,
shimmering. I watched their lives flow out. Who they were, what they
had done. My hands burned like I was touching dry ice, and all I could see
was the light- I looked right into it."
Sandra is in college now, she is studying mortuary science, and, despite her
initial disappointment, still wants to be an embalmer. "I learned
everything I could- the proper procedures techniques, applications, I was
completely absorbed." While reading in a diner she meets Matt (Peter
Outerbridge), a medical student. He sees what she is reading, a book on
postmortem pathology, and strikes up a conversation. Though shy at first,
she is obviously attracted to him and it is not long before they start dating.
He seems to understand her- "It was like he knew like he saw right through
me." She tells him her secret, that she makes love to corpses.
Matt is her first living lover. The sex is awkward and Sandra is visibly
uncomfortable with it- she sneaks out of his bed and goes back to the funeral
home for a midnight rendezvous with a cadaver. "That night I knew I
couldn't give it up, and I didn't think I would ever have to." This
is a recipe for disaster. Matt has fallen in love with her, and is trying
hard to understand her need to sleep with the dead. He suggests to her
that she is merely imagining that she can somehow commune with the dead body's
soul; that it is all her imagination, or possibly a need to be in control of her
sexuality with a partner that is the ultimate submissive. She cannot
explain to him in words what she feels when she does these things. "I
did the things I did to find the edge, to feel the end beginning. Any
thought you act on pushes you further out. Each has its own wisdom or
innocence, happiness or grief. I feel everything from the body. I
see it. It's like looking into the sun without going blind."
Sandra discovers that Matt has kept a log detailing her "after hours"
activity. She is upset enough to leave his apartment. He becomes
desperate- he visits her at work, asks her to let him watch her make love to a
corpse, even asks her to give him access to a female corpse himself, so he can
try to experience what she does. She refuses, saying "This is not
something you force yourself to do, it is something I have to do". He
invites her over one night and he is dressed in a formal black suit- he wants to
lie still and let her to pretend he is a corpse and make love to him. The
next night, he is applying makeup to make himself look dead. She is
disturbed by both gestures and cannot indulge him. The relationship seems to be
over. But he calls her later that last night, saying only "I love
you" before hanging up. She rushes to his apartment and finds him
perched on a chair, naked with a noose around his neck. She begs him to
come down, but he is willing to make the ultimate gesture of love- he kicks the
stool away and dies.
In the epilogue, Sandra tells us what followed: "Matt was gone, but
not his energy. His star was the brightest I have ever seen, exploding and
surrounding us- his love was so intense, I felt burned. Love is about
craving, our craving for transformation, and all transformation, movement,
happens because life becomes death. I still work at a funeral home and I'm
still compelled to crossover. But now I sees Matt when I look into the
center, the light."
This is indeed a disturbing and erotic film, which deservedly won Genie awards
and nominations at the Toronto Film Festival. There are several scenes in which
Molly Parker enters the embalming room at night to make love to corpses, always
fresh bodies and those of handsome young men who have recently died. Parker is
an unearthly beauty with her pale skin, thin frame, strong profile, hairstyle
reminiscent of film-noir beauties of the past. She strips naked and dances
before the bodies on the metal table, like she used to dance as an adolescent in
the woods burying dead animals. There is one scene that is far from
pornographic, but still startling as she climbs onto the table and straddles a
corpse. These scenes are not meant to be sleazy- Parker's character sees
these encounters as very real and meaningful relationships, and they always
climax with a white light of purity radiating from the corpse and consuming her
as well.
The first half of the film depicts Sandra's emergence from childhood to
adulthood. It is no coincidence that her first period coincides with her
loss of Carol, and, as her mother states, "You have become a lady
now". Sandra's first car is a hearse, and her first back-seat sexual
encounter is with a corpse. This a film that speaks of loneliness and alienation
that all teenagers feel, but takes it to the nth degree. For whatever
reason, Sandra cannot have a normal relationship with a living male. She
tries, and she does indeed seem to love Matt, but she cannot have a relationship
with him as meaningful or stimulating as her trysts with the dead.
Similarly, Matt tries to understand Sandra and fulfill her needs, but he too is
doomed to failure. This is overall a depressing film that ends in tragedy.
I reviewed the Lakeshore Entertainment DVD released by Summit Video and Forel
International Co., Ltd. This a rather rare release, on any format, and as
far as I know, this is the only DVD release available. I got mine over the
Internet- I'm afraid you won't see this one offered at your local video store,
but will indeed have to hunt for it. It has a nine scene chapter index and
a brief cast biography of Parker and Outerbridge- but the bios and the menu
itself are in Chinese. The film itself is in English, and you can turn the
Chinese subtitles off. The soundtrack is extremely good, especially for
anyone reminiscing about the mid to late nineties- it's available from
Unforscene Music, Inc. as well as on Amazon.com.
Story: 5.0 Bitch Slaps
Extras: 1.5 Bitch Slaps
Picture/Audio: 5.0 Bitch Slaps
Overall DVD: 4.0 Bitch Slaps